Iqbal’s views on Democracy

• 1. The Western democratic system is the same old

European Caesarism or imperialism.
• 2. The Western democracies only protect the interest of
capitalists.
• 3. He was against the philosophy of one’s man one’s vote.
He believed that majority of the common people cannot be
equal to wise man. He was in favor of wise man decision.
• 4. The democratic institutions such as election,
membership, council, and president ship etc. are the rotten
eggs of the new civilization.
• 5. Sovereignty of people is against the true spirit of Islam
• 6. Secularism is one of the most important feature of Western democracy.
It means separation of religion from politics.
• 7. Liberalism is the direct outcome of secularism and also the basic
attribute of democracy. Misguided thinking and uncontrolled freedom of
thoughts may easily transformed an individual into a beast.
• 8. Capitalism, one of the essential characteristic of democracy, is tool of
exploitation of poor masses. It means that the sources of income are in
the hands of few individuals to make unlimited property, and is the way
towards decentralization of wealth.
• 9. Nationalism in one of the other requirement of democracy and is based
on geographical areas, common languages, common races and culture.
• 10. Party system is the part and parcel of democracy which creates
division and compel party member to follow party line
• Iqbal criticism of western democracy was mainly due to
the peculiar circumstances that Muslim were facing either
in the Subcontinent or elsewhere, but he was not outright
rejecter of this value.
• His political thought is of the same kind to democratic
government in the individual Islamic state or democracy-
based Islamic an international order.
• He terms his democracy as a “spiritual democracy”,
different in many respects from Western democracy.
• According to Iqbal the purpose of Islam is to establish
spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam.
• He condemns the Western democracy and
advocates in its place the spiritual democracy.
• In fact, the spiritual democracy is the only
form of government that suits the ideological
state of Iqbal
• Thus, Iqbal’s belief is that Islamic political
system which is democratic in nature, and
rests on spiritualism.
 Political principles of Iqbal
(democratic essence)
• 1. Elections
 Election was the only way to express the will of the people, and partial
expression of people’s will be considered null and void.
• 2. Sovereignty
 Sovereignty belongs to God . De facto political sovereignty resides with the
people.
• 3. Status of Caliph & his Succession
 The caliph was not necessarily the high priest of Islam. He was not
representative of God on earth. He was fallible like every other Muslim and
subjects to the same impersonal authority of Divine Law.
 Although the Caliph was the head of the State, he could be directly sued in
an ordinary law court.
 The Caliph could indicate his successor, but the nomination was not valid
without the confirmation by the people.
• 4. Deposition of Caliph
 The elector had the right to demand the deposition of the Caliph, or the
dismissal of his officials if their behavior was in contravention to the
la.ws of the sharia
• 5. Transfer of Ijtihad to Parliament
 About the ijtihad and parliament Iqbal writes in his book Reconstruction
of Religious Thought in Islam, that the growth of republican spirit and
the gradual formation of legislative assemblies in Muslim lands
constitute a great step forward.
 The transfer of power of ijtihad from individual representatives of
schools to a Muslim legislative assembly, which in view of the growth of
opposition sects, is the only form Ijma can take in modern times, will
secure contributions to legal discussions from laymen who happen to
possess a keen insight into affairs
 Iqbal favoured ‘elected assembly’ and its mandate to have
‘power of ijtihad’ instead a single individual for
interpretation of sharia.
 Even he liked that ‘elected body’ functions on the line of a
true caliphate system, and the legislature can make a
‘collective decisions’ as legislated collectively.
 He favored such system, as Turkey made it operative at
that time, where Muslims are in majority.
 Iqbal was least concerned with the name of the system of
the government but most concerned with the ‘principles of
spiritual’ of Islam to be its permanent features.
 Prevaling circumstances and Iqbal
• As Iqbal grew older and Indian became assertive in their demand in
political arena-his thought became solid and mature, and so he was
dictated by the political condition of subcontinent to do something
practically if he were to realize these ideals of politics in the larger
interest of the Muslim ummah.
• He enters practical politics in 1926. He complemented his pan-Islamism
with territorial nationalism in the subcontinent context.
• After elaborating the basic of Islamic ideology and its relevance to
individual, society, and mankind, turned his attention to the Indian
Muslims who were simultaneously threatened by British Imperialism and
danger of permanent Hindu domination.
• Caught in the whirlpool of Indian politics, therefore, the basic problem of
the Indian Muslims was how to regenerate their individual and collective
selves and preserve their Islamic identity.
 His main thoughts
• His assumptions of tauhid (Oneness of God and the prophet hood of
Muhammad),
• Khuddee (ego),
• Momin (The Perfect Man),
• Nationalism
• Millat (The Community, individual and community relationship),
• Ijtihad (parliament spiritual democracy) are pivotal to his political philosophy.
• Tauhid is fundamental to all aspects of life. Writing about the importance of
tauhid in politics Iqbal says “that the new culture finds the foundation of world-
unity in the principle of tauhid.
• Islam, as a polity, is only a practical means of making this principle a living factor
in the intellectual and emotional life of mankind.
• It demands loyalty to God, not to thrones. And since God is the ultimate spiritual
basis of a life, loyalty to God virtually amounts to man’s loyalty to his own ideal
nature.
 Momin
• The concept of momin in Iqbal is also based on the
Quran, which is a major inspirational source for his
views.
• His momin is not only an embodiment of all the
Quranic principles but is in fact, the Quran in action.
• The momin has great qualities of power, vision,
action, and wisdom.
• These qualities in their perfect form are most
noticeable in the character of Holy Prophet(SAW).
• By these qualities when brought into action momin
reaches to the stage of perfection and master of
• Iqbal says that a momin is the replica of Divine
qualities.
• Iqbal’s momin is a moral creature, who is endowed
with spiritual and religious prowess, and acting
within the boundaries of the Canon Law is a master-
creator himself.
• His ceaseless struggle is directed towards the
conquest of the universe and its culmination reaches
when God and universe are absorbed in his being.
 Iqbal on Nationalism

His concept of Millat

The first (until 1905) Pan-Indian nationalism

• The political philosophy of Allama Muhammad Iqbal

(1877-1938) went through several phases of
development. The first (until 1905) was pan-Indian
nationalism with a belief in the nationhood based on
language, culture, race, and geography.
• He has written many poems reflecting his first state
of mind and philosophy i.e., pan-Indian nationalism.
For instance, National Song for Hindustani Children
takes pride in the beautiful features of the country
like the great prophetic traditions, fertile soil, and
heritage.
• He has written many poems reflecting his first state of mind
and philosophy i.e., pan-Indian nationalism.
• For instance, National Song for Hindustani Children takes pride
in the beautiful features of the country like the great
prophetic traditions, fertile soil, and heritage .
• Similarly, the Tarana-i-Hindi describes Hindustan as a lovely
and lovable country; “Thou seest deity in the images of
stone / For me there is deity in every particle of the country’s
dust.
• Two things which stand foremost in Iqbal’s pre-1905 political
poetry is: his desire to see a self-governing and united India
free of both alien domination and inner dissension.
• This community is bound by the belief of tauhid, and not by the factors of geography
and ethnic bonds.
• He elaborates the same theme in the verses which say that our Master (the Holy
Prophet), by leaving his native land resolved the problems of Muslim nationhood.
• Iqbal’s millat is a universal community of Believers, transcending all barriers of caste,
color, race, nationality, and territory.
• This concept of his is linked with the pan-Islamic movement that was going on in
subcontinent and other Muslim countries at that time.
• He advocates like an individual the community must live a life of constant struggle
and ceaseless endeavour.
• He f u r t h e r says that community has also its khudi which has all the attributes of
the individual ego.
• Vigour, force, power, determination, will rise and move forward, and courage to fight,
are the characteristics of the collective khudi of the community.
• He asks the Muslim world to consolidate the khudi as it was done by the Turks and
Egyptian for their development, because without it state and religion cannot exist.
• After discussing these concepts separately, Iqbal then establishes a
relationship between the individual and millat/community.
• He says that the community is a great blessing for the individual who
provides ample opportunities to the development of his heart and head.
• Similarly, millat/community gets organization and strength from the
individual.
• He connects khudi (self), self here means an individual, and bekhudi
(selflessness), here means community. If self-inculcates uniqueness,
initiative, determination and ambition, selflessness creates a spirit of
sacrifice, devotion, and merger of the individual wills into the bigger will
of the community for the greater good of all the members of community.
• The individual exists as a part of society. Alone he is nothing A wave is a
wave only inside the river Outside of it, it is nothing
• This thinking of line portrayed the given
political situation of India wherein British
asserted its state authority against Indian and
Indian asserted their identity-based politics
against each other.
• His constant endeavor to draw attention to
those factors of decadence which caused the
decline of Muslims in India.
 The second (1905-08) transitional

• Mental conflict
• Iqbal visited Europe in pursuit of higher education and stayed there for three
years, 1905-08.
• There he underwent a radical change.
• He became ambivalent towards pan-Indian nationalism and became pan-
Islamist therein.
• He believed that self-centered competition between man and man and
between nation and nation disintegrates human society.
• When he came back from Europe, he had already given up pan- Indian
nationalism and adopted the cult of Pan-Islamism: from now onward started
believing in one Muslim Ummah.
• He was no more believing in race and nationality and asked for unity among
the Muslims. As he writes, “Break, break the idols of color and race / In the
Millat yourself you must delete / Call not yourself of Turkish nationality, or an
Irani, or an Afghani (Iqbal, 2018).
 Third (1908-26) pan- Islamism/Muslim
nationalism
• Advocating political unity of the Muslim world
• Iqbal had now put on the mettle of pan-Islamism by advocating the role of
religion in politics.
• He now believed that “politics has its roots in the spiritual life of man… and
religion is a force of great importance in the life of individual as well as
nations”
• The membership of Islam is not determined by birth, locality, or
naturalization.
• The expression ‘Indian Mouhammedan,’ however convenient it may be, is a
contradiction in terms.
• Since, Islam is the religion which is considered above time and space
condition.
• Muslim’s nationality has no geographical basis.
• The Muslims looks for it in the holy town of Mecca.
 Fourth (1926-38) supra-
nationalism/internationalism
• The Muslim ummah was universal, the boundaries of the state were
for administrative convenience only and the affinity was spiritual.
• In the beginning Iqbal interest in practical politics remained very low
rather he remained critic of Congress and Muslim League policies
(Parray, 2013).
• However, against to his previous sentence, he entered the realm of
politics in 1926 where he tried to combine his Islamic universalism
and territorial nationalism….
• It seems to me that God is slowly bringing home to us the truth that
Islam is neither nationalism nor imperialism but a League of Nations
which recognizes artificial boundaries and racial distinctions for
facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social horizon of
its members
• Iqbal’s poetry and prose, despite their
philosophical content and tone, are overtly
political.
• This can be attributed to the political environment
of British India in the late nineteenth and in the
first half of the twentieth century; any intellectual
of that period, whether Hindu or Muslim, could
not help but join the struggle for freedom in their
respective capacities.
Iqbal and Western Ideas of Politics
• After coming from Europe, where he closely observed and interacted with the
Western life, Iqbal disapproved of the Western civilization.
• He discarded nationalism because of its divisive influence in society especially of
Muslims.
• Iqbal observed that how “nationalism had destroyed the idea of universal
brotherhood; how it had created barriers between man and man and between nation
and nation; how it had sown seeds of international discords.
• Furthermore, he also became conscious of the dangerous possibilities of the idea of
nationalism in the context of the Muslim world.
• Iqbal’s condemnation of nationalism is not a condemnation of love of the
motherland. It is a condemnation of the modern concept of nation and motherland,
the significance of which is not merely geographical. ‘It is rather principle of human
society’ which claim to be the only proper basis of cohesion and unity in human
society and which exiles religion from playing a befitting role in human society.
• It is this (nationalism) which divides the creatures of God into nations, It is this which
strikes the roots of the nationality of Islam .
• For Iqbal religion was a unifying and central factor to politics and
society of ummah.
• “Our heart is not of India, Turkey and Syria / Our commonplace is
nothing but place”.
• Iqbal does not believe in the secularism of European political thought.
He considers that separation of church and state occurred due to
material advancement and nationalism demands from the people to
switch over their loyalties from religion to nation-state.
• K. K. Aziz writes that “one of the things on which Iqbal takes an
uncompromising stand is the unique character of Islam as a
combination of the spiritual and the worldly. It is as much an ethical
system as a polity.
• It is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the word; it is a way of life”.
• This is said to emphasize the fact that there is no place in Islam for
a separation of religion and state, of things spiritual and secular.
• Iqbal also discusses positive and negative aspects of communism.
• Iqbal’s condemnation of concentration of wealth in few hands,
exploitation of workers by capitalist class, his welfare feeling for
the Punjab’s peasants and the landlords’ unjust treatment of
peasants, are having socialistic appeal to the people.
• He writes few poems in this connection like: ‘Punjab Kai Dehqan
Sey’ (To the Punjab Peasant) and ‘Lenin Khudda Kai Hazur Main’
(Lenin in the Presence of God) are socialistic in nature.
• Iqbal points out that though Marx is not a prophet, he has a book
to his credit.
• Iqbal appreciates communism for its stand on the
equality, principle, labor rights and exploitative
economic order of capitalism, but it is the ‘Godlessness’
of the communist doctrine which infuriated Iqbal.
• In Javid Nama he advises the Communists to change
their attitude of negation of God to positive recognition
of the Almighty.
• He praises Zakat institution of Islam and the equality of
Islam. Iqbal was opposed to capitalism and communism
for different reasons.